A Lullaby
by Unique Sandwich
Summary: Sometimes, killers can sing.


**A Lullaby**  
by Kelsey   
  
Disclaimer: Subaru belongs to Seishirou, who belongs to CLAMP.   
  
Notes: Written for a drabble request by RackhamRose, and also for Seishirou's birthday. I will have you know that every time I typed "my prey" it came out misspelled as "my pretty." Also, this drabble is weird as hell, and I'm not sure whether it's all that great. Seishirou has a strange inner voice. The tenses may be somewhat confused. Seishirou doesn't know why, either. ~_~  
  
--  
  
There's something breakable about him. Something cracked and flawed, something fragile. He's one of the most beautiful human beings I've ever seen, but one touch and he'll shiver to pieces. Even the lightest of taps would be too much for this particular glass cup.  
  
Though ringing crystal does have its own music, a few passing moments of loveliness before destruction.  
  
So when another touched him, and he did not break, I took it as something of a personal affront. After all, the Sakurazukamori's prey is _only_ the Sakurazukamori's prey. And there is something disquieting about someone else hearing the glassy chime his pain makes.  
  
That someone irritated me by doing that, and then he irritated me further, speaking his ambiguous clues, faintly gloating over knowing something more about my prey than I do. A serpent tongue to speak riddles--the imagery is appropriate for the leader of the Dragons of Earth. Rain slicked and sluiced to the ground as I watched him depart, wondering about his purpose in telling me these things, in daring to touch something solely _mine._ To rein in an erratic Dragon? It's true that I follow the Angels' agenda only when it happens to coincide with my own.  
  
But none of that really concerns me. It passes time.  
  
His _Kamui_ brought him to the hospital after my _Kamui_ damaged him. His _Kamui_ wept outside the ER and then crept in his room to hold his hand when the bandages were on and his pain numbed by drugs. The other Seals were not nearly as attentive.  
  
His _Kamui_ goes a bit too far, and it is well that the other Seals ushered him away.  
  
Perhaps it is in the nature of a _Kamui_ to overstep boundaries, no matter how dangerous.  
  
The window was easy to slide open, easier than explaining a late-night--or, more correctly, early morning--visit. The clouds were finally clearing, enough to allow a murky sort of light to fall across the bed, a light almost liquid enough to touch. It bled the room of the little color it had, reduced it to stark monochrome, including its lone occupant.  
  
I had thought myself prepared for the reality of the bandages, but their whiteness against dark hair rekindled the anger I believed was already dealt with, already boxed away and compartmentalized. The bandages dominated his face, crowded out all of the gentle loveliness that made him so pleasant to look on.  
  
"Seishirou-san."  
  
The painkillers were wearing off; I can discern the subtle distinctions between a voice clouded with pain and one clouded by drugs. Knowing him, he had not asked for more. Knowing him, this is yet another thing to be endured.  
  
"Subaru-kun, you should be resting." The tone was rather more dark than I intended, a predatory undertone to words concerned and mildly scolding. _Mine._  
  
A quiet whisper of a sigh, and then he confessed, "I can't sleep."  
  
"How long have you been awake?" Again, the incorrect shading to my tone.  
  
"Early afternoon."  
  
It took exactly four strides to cross the room and sit on his bed, and one smooth gesture to cup his chin in my hand. One brief instant to find his pulse with my thumb.  
  
"I could put you to sleep, if you like." Now the slight darkness to my voice was appropriate--there were two meanings to my offer, after all. Of course, I only meant one of them.  
  
He closed his eyes--eye, now, I reminded myself with some bitterness--and simply lay there for a moment, considering this. Undoubtedly coming to incorrect conclusions. It's his way, after all.  
  
_You understand so little, Subaru-kun._  
  
And then came the merest suggestion of a smile on his face, an emotion, muted by exhaustion and pain and suffering, sparking in one green eye. It looked gray in the half-light.  
  
"You can put me to sleep, if you like, but not with a spell."  
  
I considered whether I had the means to achieve such a thing while one hand absently stroked his hair. Very fine, soft hair, silken in texture. A finger touched against the coarseness of a bandage and again I wondered at the logic behind my _Kamui's_ actions. Surely he did not want my displeasure.  
  
Memory interrupted, an image of my mother, beautiful as always, sitting next to my bed. Just as I did now.  
  
A memory of a voice...  
  
His eye opened at the first notes of the soft lullaby, and I concealed a smile.  
  
_Did you think that a killer doesn't know how to sing, Subaru-kun?_  
  
But the surprise was momentary and slowly, slowly his face relaxed, as I sang him a melody only half-remembered, wordless yet managing somehow to convey a message.  
  
_Go to sleep, I'm here..._  
  
The moonlight was brilliant against his skin as the last of the clouds fled the sky. His breathing slowed, matching the rhythms of sleep, and it was then I noticed one pale hand laid over mine.  
  
I left at dawn.  
  
  
  
  



End file.
